Sources say a number of suspects bought away with the cameras and reminiscence techniques retrofitted to the vehicles of an R prepare after an apparently botched try to take the prepare for a joyride.
Sources say the incident was found Sunday when crews found that two separate R trains parked alongside a piece of layup monitor between the Briarwood and Sutphin Blvd. stations on the F line had been touching and had sustained some injury to their couplers.
Knowledge recorders on one of many trains — a 10-car set of R160 subway vehicles — point out it had been began and moved with out authorization on Saturday, apparently earlier than colliding into the second prepare at low velocity.
When transit staff boarded the prepare to attempt to pull surveillance footage, they found that every one 22 of the prepare’s surveillance cameras — which had been retrofitted to older mannequin vehicles just like the R160 over the previous few years — had been lacking, together with their reminiscence playing cards.
A minimum of one digicam was additionally stolen from the automobile on the second prepare that had been ran into, sources mentioned.
Cops estimated the lacking surveillance gear price $12,000. The extent of the injury to the trains’ couplers was not instantly clear, however sources mentioned the velocity of the collision was low.
All New York Metropolis subway vehicles have been geared up with safety cameras since December, the results of a 2022 directive from Gov. Hochul to retrofit surveillance expertise to each subway automobile within the fleet.
“They’re gold — they pay dividends every day,” MTA’s head of safety, Michael Kemper, mentioned of the surveillance techniques Thursday at a subway security press convention.
This weekend’s incident is the newest in a spate of subway automobile break-ins.
In January, a bunch of teenagers broke right into a pair of R trains parked alongside lay-up tracks in Brooklyn and took them for a joyride.
In that occasion, the teenagers both spray-painted or in any other case coated the trains’ surveillance cameras.
Initially Printed: Could 1, 2025 at 5:21 PM EDT
